Beneath the cute, colorful facade lies one of the hardest arcade-like precision platformers of all time. Playing through the bonus levels with the full sized stick is insane and I can only imagine the calloused fingers of those who braved completion on an original GBA. With that said, I had a blast! The game is kind enough to add a shorter stick "easy" option which is much more forgiving. For such a simple arcade-y concept, they get a lot of mileage out of level variety with various gimmicks such as ice, grabby ghosts, moving walls, and more. Additionally there's a ton of fun little mini games to break up the core loop.

I played the untranslated Japanese version on my Steam Deck and while I didn't understand any text it was fairly easy to get through the entire game as it is such a streamlined level-based experience. It was a lot of fun to replay levels and try to get the gold star for not using any hearts (lost when you hit walls).

With Kuru Kuru Kuruin (the first game) coming to Nintendo Switch Online, I really hope Nintendo ports an English translation of this one to the Switch as it's a blast and more people should be exposed to it. I'm a sucker for level based / time-attack sort of arcade-y platformers (see Super Monkey Ball, Neon White, and Astro's Playroom) and this game scratches that itch in a really nice way. I often found myself squeezing and turning my Steam Deck as I tried to maneuver around tight corners with a single heart left.